14-05-2025
Europe's worst destinations for flight delays revealed - and one of Brits' favourite beach hotspots tops the list...
Millions of Brits are eagerly counting down the days to their summer getaways, but be warned - not all routes to holiday hotspots are smooth sailing.
Antalya, the postcard-perfect Turkish resort known for its golden coastline, ancient ruins and turquoise waters, has just been crowned Europe's worst destination for summer flight delays.
Despite it ranking as the 12th most popular place to fly from the UK, 23.4 per cent of UK flights arrived over an hour late to the southern Turkish airport in the summer months of 2024, while 938 out of 4,008 flights were delayed by more than one hour.
That's according to a new study by JamPrime, which analysed Civil Aviation Authority data to uncover the 20 destinations most plagued by long flight delays.
Looking at the top 50 most flown-to airports from the UK in June, July, and August last year, the team ranked destinations by the percentage of flights delayed by an hour or more - and Antalya came out on top, for all the wrong reasons.
Last summer, almost a quarter of flights from the UK to Antalya were delayed by 60 minutes or more.
And with over 4,000 flights making that journey during the season, that's a lot of passengers stuck waiting at the gate or doing laps around duty-free.
Milan Malpensa was second-worst overall with 19.46 per cent of flights delayed, equating to nearly one in five flights held up by at least an hour.
Hungary's capital, Budapest, came third in the rankings, with 311 of 1,610 UK flights - or 19.32 per cent - delayed by at least an hour.
Greece's island airports were also hit hard, as Rhodes ranked fourth with 16.03 per cent of flights delayed, while Heraklion came seventh with 14.86 per cent - a total of almost 650 major delays across the two.
Two more popular Turkish destinations were in fifth and sixth place in the analysis.
Dalaman, on the country's southwestern coast, saw 15.78 per cent of flights from UK airports delayed by at least an hour, while the figure for Istanbul stood at 15 per cent.
Together, over 1,700 UK flights to Turkey's three busiest summer destinations were severely delayed.
The top ten of the summer lateness rankings was completed by Naples in Italy (14.6 per cent) in eighth, Guernsey (14.56 per cent) in ninth and Paphos in Cyprus (14.49 per cent) in tenth.
Meanwhile, Dublin, the UK's most popular summer route with over 10,000 flights, came 21st in the study, though its airport still saw 1,118 delays of an hour or more.
Across all UK airports in the study, 10.56 per cent of flights were delayed over 60 minutes - approximately 28,000 late departures during the peak season.
JamPrime founder Ben Nicholls warned that with memories of last summer's global IT meltdown still fresh, travellers should be prepared for possible setbacks again this year.
He said: 'Millions of Brits wait all year to jet off on their summer holidays, but this research shows that they might face frustrating delays, especially when flying to certain destinations.
'The data is based on flights during the summer months of 2024, and July last year saw the global CrowdStrike-related IT outages which significantly impacted airports around the world, so travellers and airlines will be hoping that no such issues occur this year as the summer holidays arrive.'
It comes as Gatwick has retained its unwanted title as the country's worst airport for delays – with departures last year running on average 23 minutes late.
The figures come as a busy summer holiday period looms and amid a warning from the travel industry that such delays risk leaving passengers feeling that they are not 'respected'.
The data is an improvement for Gatwick from nearly 27 minutes in the previous 12 months but it is still longer than at any other domestic airport, said the Civil Aviation Authority.
